forms a most remarkable pass, as by it Courmayeur may be reached from Chamouni by the route of the Grands Mulets and Dôme de Gouté. Mr. Reilly's point of departure was the summit of the Col de Miage, from whence he reached diagonally the ridge which extends from the Aiguille de Bionassay eastwards to the "Dôme;" and it is still uncertain whether this ridge can in all circumstances be reached directly from the level of the s. Glacier of Miage. Having attained the summit of the Dôme by this novel route, Mr. Reilly, with his accustomed intrepidity, proceeded to cut his way down the N.E. face of the Dôme right upon the Grands Mulets, instead of going round by the grand plateau. It is interesting to know that he was accompanied on this occasion by Mr. Birkbeck, the victim of the accident of 1861 above referred to, whose Alpine ardour appears to have suffered no diminution in consequence of that tremendous somersault. The expedition which it had interrupted was directed towards the very passage thus effected three years later.

It will be seen by the map that the neighbourhood of the Dôme de Gouté is intersected by several routes. Two of these lead to the summit of Mont Blanc. One is the usual route by the Grands Mulets and the Rochers Rouges. Another is that originally tried by De Saussure, and repeatedly attempted since, by the Glacier of Bionassay and the Aiguille de Gouté. This last route offered no advantages while it was necessary to re-descend from the level of the Dôme to the grand plateau, and take the old course to the top; but in 1859 the Rev. C. Hudson1 effected the direct passage from the Dôme to Mont Blanc by the N.W. ridge of the latter, which overhangs the awful precipices of the S. Miage, traversing the intermediate knoll, known from an early period under the name of the Bosse du Dromadaire. It does not appear that any special difficulty occurs on this, the most natural access of any to the highest mountain of Europe; and it is inexplicable why, though repeatedly "prospected," it has for generations been regarded as impracticable.

Mont Blanc was ascended in 1863 from one other direction by Messrs. Maquetin and Briquet. By crossing the Col de Géant from Courmayeur, and bivouacking at the south foot of the Aiguille de Midi, they gained the summit of Mont Blanc by the Mont Maudit and the Mur de la Côte. This route presents some points of interest, but it is absurd and illogical to consider it as a route from Courmayeur to the summit of Mont Blanc. It is essentially a route by Montanvert and the Glacier du Géant, entirely situated on the northern slopes.

So stated in Mr. Ball's Guide. We cannot recollect to have met with the original account.

Of the next pass in order, the Col du Géant (11,200 feet), numbered 27 on the map, we need say no more here. The following one, the Col de Triolet, achieved by Mr. Reilly in 1864, has a newer interest, and is likely, we should think, to become popular amongst members of the Alpine Club. This is the only outlet yet discovered from the Glacier of Talèfre, and it leads into the Italian Val Ferret, near to the col of that name, by the Glacier of Triolet. Its position is shown on the map by the red line passing close to the Aiguille de Triolet. Mr. Reilly, starting from Montanvert, slept under a shelter-stone on the Couvercle. From the notes with which he has kindly furnished us, we find that, leaving his bivouac at 4.30 A.M., passing the Jardin, and ascending the Talèfre Glacier to its S.E. angle, he, with his companion, Mr. Whymper, attained the Col de Triolet without very serious difficulty at 8.10, an early hour, considering the great height, which is 12,160 feet. The view must partake much of the character of that from the Mondelant, already referred to, which is but a little way farther east, and only 400 feet higher. The descent from the Col to the Glacier of Triolet is steep and difficult. The more level part of the névé of the glacier was only reached at 10.50, and the moraine an hour later. The glacier is a long one, and in order to escape the torrent at its foot, the next higher glacier, that of Mont Dolent, had to be used as a bridge. Finally, the châlets of Praz de Bar were reached at four, being eleven and a half hours from the Couvercle. To descend the valley to Courmayeur would take three hours more.

The remaining cols of the chain are those of Argentière (19), from Chamouni to La Folly; of Chardonnet (18), from Chamouni to Orsières; and that of the Fenêtre de Salena (21), in the same direction. Of these we have already said enough.

Not one of all these passes, excepting the two nearest to the to the Col du Bonhomme, are under 11,000 English feet in height.

And here we must take leave, for the present, of Mr. Reilly and his map. He has generously made over all right of property in the latter to the Alpine Club, and the Club, by accepting the trust, have engaged that the public shall receive the benefit of Mr. Reilly's labours. The author, having undertaken to reduce and redraw the map on a scale of of nature, and to correct it throughout from his latest observations, this finished drawing-which is a masterpiece of its kind--has, we understand, been placed in the hands of a competent artist in lithography, and will be published in the course of two or three months. The result, even after making some allowance for the lithograph falling short of the original, will, we trust, justify the encomiums we

have pronounced on Mr. Reilly's labours. It will be a real boon to the tourist, the geographer, and the geologist. It will be by far the proudest trophy which the Alpine Club can show of the enterprise and devotion of its members. The junior but rival Clubs of Switzerland, Vienna, and Turin, will find that the coronet of Alpine exploration has been secured for Britain. It is certainly a remarkable fact that a mountain range so limited in extent as that of Mont Blanc, so remarkable by its elevation, so attractive by its scenery, should have remained unsurveyed till the second half of the nineteenth century. It is still more remarkable that the three important States-France, Italy, and Switzerland-which share amongst them this stronghold of nature, should have been unable to agree to make a map of it on a common scheme, and that it should have been left to a British amateur to supply so glaring a deficiency.

As to Mr. Reilly himself, we can only express the hope that his perseverance, skill, and taste, having found a fit field for their exercise, will continue to be further employed for the promotion of geography and the benefit of mountaineers.

ART. VI.--Essays in Criticism. By MATTHEW ARNOLD. London, 1865.

IN a recent number of this Journal,1 when quoting one of Mr. Matthew Arnold's luminous judgments, we ventured to express our belief that his papers, should they ever be brought together, would furnish us with some of the most subtle and most cultivated criticism in the English language. No man hastily decides on publishing a volume of essays; and we fear, therefore, that Mr. Arnold must have determined on this step before those remarks can have met his eye. Otherwise, it would be no small satisfaction to think that any words of ours had suggested the idea of this publication; or, what is perhaps more possible, had in some degree strengthened a half-formed purpose.

Writers in the periodical press are addicted to republishing their essays, and are prone to apologize for so doing. The tendency is natural; the apologies unnecessary. Men of the greatest ability and most profound information do not now think it unworthy of them to write, and to write their best, in magazines and reviews. And it is very natural that such men should seek to rescue their work from that forgetfulness which inevitably overwhelms such a form of publication. Moreover, it is for the interest of readers that this tendency should be encouraged. In their behalf it is especially to be desired that writings of the class we refer to should be preserved at least beyond the hour. It is not that the days of books, and of good books, too, are over. Surely to call English literature at the present time frivolous, is to take a very partial view. There is no lack of good writers or of thoughtful readers; but each of these classes appears smaller than it did some years ago, because the number of writers and readers of all sorts has increased. Especially what may be called a middle class of readers has been in our day almost created,-men of too active intelligence to live by fiction alone, but who do not venture among the highest places of literature from want of leisure, or of mental range, or it may be from imperfect education,-men who will hardly encounter Grote, or Merivale, or Mill, but who yet weary of the flash of Miss Braddon or the commonplace of Trollope. It must indeed be a mind of a very ordinary stamp whose requirements can be satisfied by English fiction, disorganized and inartistic as it now is. The wants of this class of readers are best supplied by good essays or articles; and we therefore think that when a writer gratifies a natural ambition by seeking for his work a more abiding form than the review or 1 No. lxxxi., August 1864.

the magazine, he should receive a hearty welcome, not, as is too often the case, a condescending, almost a contemptuous recognition.

It is, however, questionable how far considerations such as these are applicable to the case before us. Mr. Arnold's Essays can hardly be classed as good popular writing, and will hardly recommend themselves to ordinary and hasty readers. Their publication in this form can be justified on a higher groundon the ground of their intrinsic merit. On the other hand, doubts may be entertained as to their probable popularity. They are all in the strictest sense critical, and criticism is never popular. Most of the sources of attraction which have made the success of so many similar publications are wanting here: we have not the attractiveness of biography, the power of history, or the yet livelier interest which attaches to social and political questions. Nor is the style of the criticism calculated to conciliate. No prejudices are flattered; no faults are left unexposed; and the standards appealed to are not such as will readily be recognised, or even comprehended, by the every-day reader.

Mr. Arnold began his literary career as a poet. It is not often that prize poems are worthy of being remembered; but Mr. Arnold's poem on Cromwell, which obtained the Newdigate at Oxford in 1843, was an exception to this general rule of oblivion. The purely poetical merit of some portion of it was not inconsiderable; but it was specially remarkable for the manliness and good taste which prevailed throughout, and still more for an effort at construction which succeeded in giving, even to a prize poem, something of artistic completeness. This manliness and cultivated taste, and this reverence for art, can be traced in all Mr. Arnold's subsequent poems; and these qualities, beyond all else, have made him the critic he is. In 1849 Mr. Arnold published anonymously a small volume of poems, and another in 1852. These were republished under his name in 1857, with additions and alterations; and in 1858 he attempted to enrich English literature with "what is most perfect in the forms of the most perfectly formed literature in the world," namely, the form of Greek tragedy. Merope, however, proved a failure, as such experiments usually do; but his other poems have achieved a very considerable amount of popularity. It is no part of our present purpose to enter into any criticism of Mr. Arnold's poetical labours. It must be conceded that the highest imaginative power is not his; but he possesses many eminent poetical gifts notwithstanding. His varied and musical versification; his diction, of great beauty, yet never overloaded with gaudy richness,-indeed he sometimes carries his horror of